Video recorded in 2001 and interviewed by Nobel Laureate Harry Kroto, scientist Mildred Dresselhaus was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in a poor section of the Bronx. She was a Fullbright Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University (UK) in 1951-52 and obtained a PhD at the University of Chicago in 1958. Millie and her husband Gene both worked at the Lincoln Labs where her research led to a fundamental understanding of the electronic structure of semimetals, especially graphite. With 4 young children, in 1967, she was invited to MIT for a year, and soon became a tenured professor there.

A leader in promoting opportunities for women in science and engineering, Dresselhaus received a Carnegie Foundation grant in 1973 to encourage women`s study of traditionally male dominated fields, such as physics. She was appointed to The Abby Rockefeller Mauze chair, an Institute-wide chair, endowed in support of the scholarship of women in science and engineering. In 2000 she acted as chief science advisor to Bill Clinton.